Mushroom cook Erin Patterson’s evidence, in her own words

From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Tuesday, June four. Working from home is a critical path to growing productivity in the economy of the future. That's the coalition's surprise new position. It's a turnaround from the disastrous election campaign bid to curtail work from home rights, which senior Liberals say helped lose them the election. But the opposition says it's keen to fight labor on other

Evidence eron Trudy Patterson.

That's how the woman accused of cooking up a fatal mushroom lunch started her evidence before the Victorian Supreme Court, where a jury is hearing evidence on three murder charges and a sole count of attempted murder. Aaron Patterson has pleaded not guilty. We've used voice actors throughout this episode to bring you the words spoken in court.

The defense will call Aaron Patterson.

Colin Mandy Casey, the Senior Council representing Aaron Patterson again by asking her about her life in July twenty twenty three, immediately preceding the mushroom lunch.

In July of twenty twenty three, how old were your children.

My children had just recently settled into a new school. They changed schools at the start of that term, so the children lived with me full time and they could see Simon whenever they wanted to. And practically what that meant was our daughter spent a big part of Saturday afternoons and evenings with Simon, and they often did extra things like go to the beach or go to the local pool whenever the idea struck them. But our son was only seeing his dad really a church or youth group.

Patterson said she was financially comfortable enough not to have to work full time and was planning a new degree.

At the start of twenty three. I'd been accepted into a Bachelor of Nursing at midwifery at Federation University, and I'd deferred that for one year. I was planning to take that up at the start of twenty four.

Patterson said she'd drawn up her own plans for the home she shared with the kids.

I saw it as the final house, meaning I wanted it to be a house where the children would grow up, where once they moved away for UNI or for work, they could come back and stay whenever they liked, bring their children, and I'd grow old there. That's what I hoped.

We've covered the good things in your life at the time. Were there parts of your life that weren't so good? In July of twenty twenty.

Three, yeah, there was. I'd felt for some months that my relationship with the wider Patterson family, and particularly with Don and Gale, had perhaps had a bit more distance or space put between us. We saw each other less. I mean, partly it's a consequence of I no longer lived in the same town as Donn and Gale. But I'd begun to have concerns that Simon was not wanting me to be involved with the family too much anymore. Perhaps I wasn't being invited to so many things.

And how was your relationship with Simon in July of twenty twenty three.

It was functional From the start of the year to July. We mainly just related on logistical things like church, which the streaming the kids, But we didn't relate on friend things banter like we used to. That changed at the start of the year.

We'll get back to that in due course. How in July of twenty twenty three, how did you feel about yourself physically?

Not good? Why I'd been fighting a never ending battle of low self esteem most of my adult life and the further inroads I made to being middle aged less, I felt good about myself. I suppose put on more weight, could handle less exercise.

Was it principally the weight tissue?

Yeah, that was the large that was the bulk of it. Yep.

And did you have plans to do anything about to address the weightissue? I did, And what were those plans?

I was planning to have weight loss surgery, you know, is it gastric bypass? I was planning to do that.

Mandy Ben took Patterson back to the start of her relationship with Simon Patterson. She said the pair met at Monash City Council, where she said he was a tr traffic engineer and she was an office administrator engaged by the RSPCA. In late two thousand and four. They shared lunches and after work drinks with a group of friends and gradually bonded over weekend camping trips. They were friends for eight months before they began dating in mid two thousand and five.

When you met Simon, what were your views about religion?

I was what you'd probably call a fundamentalist atheist, Like I was really very atheist.

And what were Simon's views?

Oh?

He was a Christian. Yeah.

And did your attitude towards religion change?

Yeah?

It did. Yeah. So through the course of those months December four jan Fab five, we had a lot of conversations about life, religion, politics, and a lot about religion. And I was trying to convert him to being an atheist. But things happened in reverse and I became a Christian.

Patterson said she first met Simon's parents, Dawn and Gail Patterson, who would later die after eating her beef Wellington, in two thousand and five on her first trip to their town, corn Borough. Simon's uncle, Ian Wilkinson, was the minister at Cornborough Baptist Church.

I remember being really excited about it because I'd never been to a church service before. I'd been to my sister's wedding inner church, but that was it. I was really looking forward to it.

Wilkinson, who gave evidence earlier in this trial, was the sole survivor of the Mushroom Lunch. His wife, Heather, died after consuming the beef Wellington.

I remember that there was a banner up on the wall behind where Ian was preaching. He was the pastor and he was giving a sermon that day, and there was a banner. It could still be there now, but it has on it faith, hope, and love. And Ian gave a sermon talking about that. There's a passage in the Bible that talks about faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love. I remember Ian giving a sermon on that, and then we had communion, which I was welcome to participate paid in.

What impact did that church service have on you?

I had what can best be described as like a spiritual experience. I'd been approaching religion as an intellectual exercise up to that point. Doesn't make sense, is it rational? But what I had I would call a religious experience there and it quite overwhelmed me.

Camping weekends were very important to Simon, his ex wife told the court, as he wanted a chance to really switch off from work. The couple also had a regular Bible study group with one of Simon's cousins and a few friends. They became engaged in two thousand and seven and had a wedding hosted by Donald Gale Patterson under

What we really wanted for our honeymoon was to drive around Australia, so Simon gave notice at his job. We gave away everything we had, sold Simon's car to Ian and Heather bought a miss and patrol and we just hit the open road.

And where did you go?

We first went to Sydney. Simon had some friends there that he wanted us to stay with, so we did that and then we just slowly meandered our way across Australia, but through the you know, like far West Birdsville, Unadada track, through the guts of it.

Coming up, the marriage starts to crack. Aaron Patterson's evidence continues.

After the break.

After they'd be Calliday, the newlyweds settled down in Perth.

Simon was pretty keen to keep traveling, and I was pretty keen to stop for a while and put down roots. I was keen to start having babies, I guess for one of a better way to phrase it. So we did.

Their first child, a boy, was born in early two thousand and nine.

How was I'm asking this for a reason. How was his birth? How were you after giving birth?

His birth was very traumatic for what reason? It went for a very long time, and they tried to get him out with forceps and he wouldn't come out, and he started to go into distress and they lost his heart beat. So they did an emergency caesarean and got him out quickly.

Now, as a result of that cesarean, you had to stay in hospital for a few days.

Yeah, it was sixteen years ago, so I'm not sure exactly how long, but it was probably roughly a week. My son was in the neonatal. I see you for a while.

And how was it that you ended up leaving the hospital?

So my son had got to a point where they were happy to discharge him. He was off oxygen, he was off the feeding tube, and they said he could be discharged to go home with Simon, but they wanted me to stay. They didn't think I'd healed quite well enough from the surgery, and they wanted me to stay, and I wanted to go with my son. So I remember having a conversation with Simon about it, and I was really upset and I said, I don't want to stay here by myself. I want to go home with

Did that involve you discharging yourself against medical advice?

Yeap, it did.

Down and Gail Patterson came to stay, and the extended family rented an airbnb out of town.

I remember being really relieved that Gail was there because I felt really out of my depth. I had no idea what to do with a baby, and I was not confident, and she was really supportive and gentle and patient with me.

Did she give you advice?

She did? What about about helping to settle him after a feed, about trying to interpret his cries? And she gave me good advice about just relax and enjoy it. You don't have to stick to this timetable, this schedule. Just relax and enjoy your baby.

When the baby was a few months old, they set out again for a trip around the top half of Australia, back in Thenisent Patrol and off to the Gibb River Road, then the tanem My Track up to Tenant Creek, across to Cairns and down to Townsville.

And how were you feeling in November of two thousand and nine in terms of all that traveling you'd been doing.

It had been a good holiday, but I'd had enough. I wanted to sleep in a real bed, and it was getting harder to camp with the baby. Like when we started off he was three months old, he slept a lot. I remember joking at the time that I couldn't remember his eye color because his eyes were never open.

Like.

He slept a lot. So when we first started traveling, like we could time our long drives with these three hour naps that he had. But by November he was standing up and crawling and not sleeping a lot. It was a lot harder. I'd had a gut full.

Did you and Simon talk about that?

Yes, yeah, we did.

And what was the agreement that you came to.

The agreement we had was that I flew back to Perth and Simon followed with the baby in the patrol.

Once back in Perth, the couple split, reunited, and then had periods of separation until about twenty fifteen.

I would say that even though obviously our relationship was struggling to cause a separation, it was really important to both of us to cooperate about our son and make it as easy on him as possible, as easy as the separation of his parents can be. Yeah, that was our priority.

And was there any conflict between you as to how to look after him?

No, there wasn't. There wasn't.

There must have been some tension to cause the separations.

Yeah, of course, there was.

What was that about?

Primarily what we struggled with over the course of our relationship. If we had any problems at all, it was we just couldn't communicate well when we disagreed about something. We could never communicate in a way that made each of us heard or understood, so we would just feel heard and not know how to resolve it.

But that kind of tension didn't extend to how to look after your.

Son, No, it didn't, because we both just loved him didn't want him to They were adult problems. They were not problems for a child.

Your honor? Is that a convenient time?

That's how lawyers with one eye on the clock signaled to the judge that they can wrap up for the day. Aaron Patterson will return to the witness box at ten thirty am on Tuesday.

You can tune in

To keep up with live updates from our reporters in court, Ellie Dudley and John Ferguson at the Australian dot com dot au